Читать книгу Pip - Ian Hay - Страница 11

Mr. Pocklington. Beatrice!

A rather breathless little Voice. Present, sir. I wish to take a glass of milk and a bun [very emphatic this] durin' the interval, and I propose, with your permission, to borrow this copy of "Carrots Just a Little Boy"; and, please, I've got a note from mum—I mean I am the bearer of a letter from my mother asking for you to be so kind as to—to excuse my not havin' done all my home work, 'cos I forgot—

Mr. Pocklington. Beatrice!

The R. B. L. V. I mean 'cos I neglected [there was no such word as "forget" in Mr. Pocklington's curriculum] to take the book home. And, please, mum—my mother would have written to you by post last night, only she forg—neglected to do it till it was too late.

And Beatrice, having unburdened herself of a task which has been clouding her small horizon ever since breakfast, sits down with a sigh of intense relief.

On the first morning after their arrival, Mr. Pocklington, having called out the last name and registered the last glass of milk, drew the attention of the school to Pip and Pipette.

"You have to welcome two fresh companions this morning," he said. "I will enter their names on the register, and will then read them aloud to you, in order that you may know how to address your new friends."

Turning to Pip, Mr. Pocklington asked his name.

"Pip."

"No, no," said Mr. Pocklington testily. "Your first baptismal name, boy!"

Pip, to whom the existence of baptismal names was now revealed for the first time, merely turned extremely red and shook his head.

"We do not countenance childish nicknames here," said Mr. Pocklington grandly. "What is your Christian name, boy?"

Pip, to whom Christian and baptismal names were an equal mystery, continued to sit mute, glaring the while in a most disconcerting fashion at poor Miss Arabella, who happened to sit opposite to him.

Mr. Pocklington turned impatiently to Pipette.

"What is your brother's name?"

"Please, it's just Pip," replied Pipette plaintively, groping for Pip's hand under the desk. "He hasn't got any other name, I don't fink."

"Perhaps it is Philip," suggested pretty Miss Amelia. "I believe"—with a little blush—"that 'Pip' is occasionally used as an abbreviation for that name. Is your name Philip, little boy?" she asked, leaning forward to Pip, with a glance which he would have valued considerably more if he had been ten years older.

"I don't know," said Pip.

"I think it must be Philip," said Miss Amelia, turning to her father.

So Pip was inscribed on the roll as Philip, which, as it happened, was his real name. (By the way, his surname was Wilmot.)

"Now, your first baptismal name, little girl?" said Mr. Pocklington briskly, turning to Pipette.

"Please, it's Pipette," she replied apprehensively.

Her fears were not ungrounded. The school began to titter.

"Pipette? My dear, that is a quite impossible name. A pipette is a small glass instrument employed in practical chemistry. Surely you have some proper baptismal name! Perhaps you can suggest a solution again," he added, turning to Miss Amelia.

No, Miss Amelia could offer no suggestion. Her forte, it appeared, was gentlemen's names. As a matter of fact, Pipette's name, as ascertained by reference to Father by post that night, was Dorothea, and she had been laughingly christened "Pipette" by her mother, because her father, when summoned from the laboratory to view his newly born daughter, had arrived holding a pipette in his hand.

So Pip and Pipette, much to their surprise and indignation, found themselves addressed as Philip and Dorothea respectively, and as such joined in the pursuit of knowledge in company with a motley crew of Arthurs, Reginalds, Ermyntrudes, Winifreds, and the like. Surnames were not employed in the school. If two children possessed the same Christian name they were distinguished by the addition of any other sub-title they happened to possess. Three unfortunate youths, for instance, were addressed respectively as John Augustus, John William, and John Evelyn.

Things at Wentworth House School move in a stereotyped circle, and Pip and Pipette soon became familiar with the curriculum. There were three classes, they found. The First Class, the veterans, nearly old enough to go to a preparatory school, dwelt in a stuffy apartment called "The Study." Their learning was profound, for they were taught a mysterious language called Latin, and another, even more mysterious, called "Alzeber" (or something like that). The Second Class, conducted by Miss Mary—formidable, but a good sort—in a corner of the schoolroom, did not fly so high. They studied history and geography, and were addicted to a fearsome form of parlour-game called "Mentalarithmetic," which involved much shrieking of answers to highly impossible questions about equally dividing seventeen apples among five boys.

Pip and Pipette occupied a humble position in the Third Class, where they soon developed a fervent admiration for pretty Miss Amelia, who was always smiling, always daintily dressed, and charmingly inaccurate and casual.

On Thursday afternoons the whole school assembled in the Music Room. Here faded Miss Arabella thumped mechanically on the piano, while the pupils of Wentworth House School chanted an inexplicable and interminable ditty entitled "Doh-ray-me-fah." The words of this canticle were printed on a canvas sheet upon the wall, and the method of inculcation was somewhat peculiar. Mr. Pocklington, taking his stand beside the sheet, would lay the tip of his little white wand upon the word "Doh" printed at the bottom. Miss Arabella would strike a note upon the piano, and the school would reproduce the same with no uncertain sound, sustaining it by one prolonged howl until the white wand slid up to "Ray," an example which the vocalists would attempt to follow to the best of their ability, and with varying degrees of success. Having rallied and concentrated his forces on "Ray," Mr. Pocklington would advance to "Me," and then to "Fah," the effects achieved by the elder male choristers, whose voices were reaching the cracking stage, as the scale approached the topmost "Doh," being as surprising as they were various.

The hour always concluded with a sort of musical steeplechase. The white wand would skip incontinently from Doh to Fah, and from Me to Soh, the singers following after—faint yet pursuing. At the end of three minutes, the field having tailed out, so to speak, every note in the gamut was being sung, fortissimo, by at least one member of the choir, and the total effect was more suggestive of a home for lost dogs than an academy for the sons and daughters of gentlemen.

Our friends enjoyed this diversion hugely. Pipette, who could carol like a lark, hopped from note to note with an agility only equalled by that of the white wand itself. Pip, who had no music in his soul, adopted a different method of procedure. Selecting a note well within his compass, he would stick to it with characteristic thoroughness and a gradually blackening countenance, until a final flourish from the white wand intimated to all and sundry that this nuisance must now cease.

Pip and Pipette were also submitted to a rather farcical ordeal which Mr. Pocklington called his "common-sense test." Shortly after their arrival they were called into the Study, where Mr. Pocklington, after a little homily on the danger of judging by appearances and the fallaciousness of giving preference to quantity rather than quality, produced a threepenny-bit and a penny, and commanded his auditors to take their choice. Pipette unhesitatingly picked the threepenny-bit, and was commended for her acumen. Pip, when it came to his turn, selected the penny, and after being soundly rated for his stupidity was cast forth from the Study and bidden to learn sense. A week later he was again put to the test, and again chose the penny, repeating his performance with stolid regularity when given a further opportunity of redeeming his character the following week. After that the affair developed into a kind of round game, Mr. Pocklington producing the two coins from time to time and Pip invariably selecting the penny—a proceeding which gave his preceptor unlimited opportunities for tiresome little lectures to the school in general, and Pip in particular, on the subjects mentioned above.

Finally, after the entertainment had been repeated week by week for some time, Pipette, whose loyal little soul chafed at the sycophantic giggles of the other boys and girls when Pip was being scarified by Mr. Pocklington, boldly broached the matter to her brother.

"Pip, why don't you take the fripenny-bit? If you did he'd stop bein' so howwid to you."

Pip regarded his sister's small eager face with cold scorn.

"If once I took the threepenny-bit," he replied, "he'd stop offerin' the money altogether. Why, I've made eightpence since I came here. Silly kid!"

This was the last occasion in their lives on which Pipette ever questioned the wisdom of her beloved brother's actions.

Both children made friends rapidly. Pip, indeed, soon after his arrival, received a proposal of marriage, which, ever ready to oblige a lady, he accepted forthwith. But he was reckoning without Pipette. That jealous little person, finding one day that Pip had suddenly deserted her, and was at that moment actually sharing his morning bun with his fiancée in the boot-room, incontinently burst in upon the lovers, and after a brief but decisive interview despatched her rival howling from the room, remaining herself to share the bun with the newly restored Pip, who, to be quite frank, had been finding the rôle of a Romeo, however passive, rather exacting.

Isabel Dinting, the disappointed lady, was inconsolable for a day or two, but she eventually recovered her spirits, and lived to heap coals of fire on Pip's head, as you shall hear.

One of the most curious and characteristic institutions at Wentworth House School was Mr. Pocklington's system of "Task-Tickets." Every boy and girl on entering the school received ten little tablets about the size of visiting-cards, inscribed with his or her name, and numbered from one to ten consecutively. If a pupil failed in a lesson or broke a rule, one of his Task-Tickets was impounded, and was not restored until the faulty lesson was perfected or a specified imposition performed. Periodically there would be an "inspection," and many a small head whose owner was discovered to be short of tickets would be hung in shame that day. Only such confirmed reprobates as Thomas Oates, the bad boy of the school (whom Mr. Pocklington in his more jocular moments addressed as "Titus," much to his hearers' mystification), could endure the stigma of being perpetually without a full complement. Thomas indeed once electrified the school by announcing to Miss Mary, when asked for a ticket in default of an unlearned lesson, that all his tickets were in pawn already, and that, until he had redeemed one of the same, he would be unable to oblige her. Mr. Pocklington and the majority of his staff were horror-struck at such iniquity; but Miss Mary, in whom was concentrated most of the common sense of the family, instituted a search in Master Thomas's desk, with the result that she triumphantly fished out no less than five tickets. All of which goes to prove that Thomas Oates, like a good many of us, preferred notoriety, even as a malefactor, to respectable oblivion.

The Task-Ticket system presented another feature of interest. Besides their regulation ten ordinary tickets, Mr. Pocklington's pupils were entitled to acquire "Special Task-Tickets." If you weeded the garden, or filled some ink-pots, or wrote a specially neat copy, you were presented with a Task-Ticket marked "Special" in red ink in one corner. Next time a breakdown in work or the infraction of a rule brought you within the sphere of operations of Mr. Pocklington's penal code, exemption from punishment could be purchased by payment of one or more of your Special Task-Tickets. This scheme was attractive in several ways. Good children—chiefly little girls, it must be admitted—accumulated these treasures assiduously for the mere joy of possession, the trifling fact that their owners were far too virtuous to be likely ever to have need of them being more than counterbalanced by the comfortable glow of satisfaction with which the existence of such a moral bank-balance suffused their rather self-righteous little bosoms. Wicked children, on the other hand, would laboriously collect tickets against a rainy day, and, having accumulated a sufficient store to pay for the consequences, would indulge in a prolonged orgy of sin until the last ticket was gone. Thomas Oates once found ten Special Task-Tickets in an old desk, and having straightway filled a like number of buttoned boots in the girls' dressing-room with soap-and-water, proffered the same in compensation. However, the possession of so much hoarded virtue in such a proclaimed reprobate roused the suspicions of the authorities. Inquiries were set on foot, the fraud was discovered, and Thomas was only saved from expulsion from Wentworth House School by the intercession of pretty Miss Amelia, who cherished a weakness for all renegades of the opposite sex.

Pip's tear-stained ex-fiancée, Isabel Dinting, anxious to drive away the depression resultant upon her unfortunate attachment, allowed herself to become badly bitten with the ticket-collecting mania. Her own ten ordinary tickets invariably presented a full muster, and all her soul was set upon the acquisition of Specials. These, by the way, were transferable, and consequently Isabel's friends were requested to bestir themselves, and by extra acts of virtue earn something to contribute to her store. Pip himself assisted her. One day he caught and expelled from the classroom a troublesome bumblebee, and, much to his surprise, was awarded a Special Task-Ticket by the grateful Miss Amelia. He promptly handed over the gift to Isabel, whose gratification knew no bounds. Touched by his adorer's thanks, Pip decided in his quiet way to help her further. Next morning the schoolroom suffered from a positive inundation of bumblebees, and the services rendered by Pip in removing them were rewarded by more Specials, all of which were duly handed over to the now greatly consoled Isabel. When, however, the phenomenon occurred again on the following morning, Miss Mary, who did not share her sister's romantic belief in the integrity of the male sex, became suspicious, and insisted on searching Pip's desk. An incautiously handled paper bag emitted a perfect cascade of moribund bumblebees, and Pip's ingenious device for obliging a lady stood revealed. After that he made no more contributions to the supply.

Mention has already been made of that arch-ruffian Master Thomas Oates. With him Pip waged war from the day that he entered the school. Hostilities commenced immediately. Thomas dared Pip to place his hand in a can of almost boiling water in the dressing-room. Pip did so, and kept it there unwinkingly for the space of a full minute. Next day his hand was skinless, and Father had to dress it for him in splendidly conspicuous bandages. Pip retaliated by initiating a breath-holding contest, in which his opponent was not only worsted, but admitted his defeat by an involuntary and sonorous gurgle right in the middle of one of Mr. Pocklington's customary harangues on nothing in particular in the large schoolroom. He was promptly scarified for his unseemly conduct and fined three Task-Tickets.

One afternoon, to the curiosity of all and the trepidation of some, "Whistle-in" sounded at two-fifteen instead of two-twenty-five. Evidently something momentous was about to occur.

All his pupils being seated, and the roll having been called, Mr. Pocklington, with an air of portentous solemnity, explained the reason for which they were assembled and met together. It was nothing very dreadful after all, but the seriousness with which the subject was treated by their preceptor impressed the children with a hazy feeling that they were assisting at a murder trial.

Some person or persons unknown, it appeared, had invaded the Study, and had embellished the features of a bust of Julius Cæsar, which stood on the mantelpiece, with some assorted coloured chalks, which further investigation proved to have been stolen from the chalk-box by the blackboard. Mr. Pocklington, who was not blessed with a sense of humour, sought to drive home the enormity of this offence by ocular demonstration. He rang the bell; and after a short but impressive pause the door of the schoolroom was thrown open by the pageboy, and the butler staggered majestically in, carrying Julius Cæsar on a tea-tray. That empire-builder's "make-up" could hardly be called a becoming one. A red nose gave him a bibulous appearance, his blue chin suggested late rising and the absence of a razor, and a highly unsymmetrical moustache, executed in mauve chalk, stood out in vivid contrast to his blackened right eye. It says much for the impression which Mr. Pocklington's introductory harangue had produced that not a child in the room so much as smiled.

The perspiring butler having set down his alcoholic-looking burden upon a small table and withdrawn, attended by his satellite—the only person present, by the way, who appeared inclined to regard the situation with levity—Mr. Pocklington once more addressed his cowering audience.

"I will now ask the perpetrator of this outrage," he thundered, "to stand up, that I may punish him as he deserves."

The little girls all shivered with apprehension, but one or two little boys looked slightly amused. They were not very old or experienced, but they were not green enough to join gratuitously in a game of "Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!"

Mr. Pocklington played his next card.

"I may add," he continued, "that a boy was seen to leave the Study in a surreptitious manner shortly after this offence must have been committed. No one has entered the Study since. That boy, therefore, must be the culprit. If he does not immediately respond to the dictates of his conscience and stand up in his place—I shall expose him! Now, please!"

There was a death-like silence, suddenly broken by piercing shrieks from one Gwendoline Harvey, aged seven, for whose infant nerves the strain had proved too great.

"Please, it wasn't me," she wailed, "and—and—and I've lost my hankey!"

Tender-hearted Miss Arabella supplied the deficiency, and led her out, still sobbing. The inquisition was resumed.

"I shall give the culprit one more minute," announced Mr. Pocklington in the tones of a Grand Inquisitor.

There was another tense silence. The inmates of Wentworth House School breathed hard, looked straight before them, and waited with their small mouths wide open. One or two little girls—and small boys, for that matter—gripped the benches convulsively, and with difficulty refrained from screaming.

"The minute has elapsed," proclaimed the Grand Inquisitor. "Philip, stand up!"

"Ah!" A long, shuddering sigh, partly of relief and partly of apprehension, ran round the room. Pipette turned deathly pale. Pip rose slowly to his feet, staring intently in his disconcerting way at the besotted features of Julius Cæsar.

"Philip," said Mr. Pocklington, "you were seen coming out of the Study at one-twenty. What have you to say?"

Pip had nothing to say, but transferred his gaze to Mr. Pocklington. As a matter of fact he had not entered the Study. He had spent some time, it was true, in the passage outside the door, but that was because he was waiting for Thomas Oates, having arranged to meet him there for five minutes, for the purpose of adjusting a small difference on a matter of a purely personal character, calling for plenty of elbow-room and freedom from publicity. Tommy Oates had not appeared, and Pip had been late for luncheon in consequence.

"Do you confess to this outrage?" inquired Mr. Pocklington, coming suddenly to the point.

Pip collected himself. Then as common politeness seemed to demand some sort of reply, he said, "No."

Another slight shudder passed round the room.

"Do you know anything about the matter?"

Pip was about to reply with another negative, when it suddenly flashed across his mind that as he stood outside the Study waiting for Master Oates he had experienced considerable difficulty in getting rid of Isabel Dinting, who had hovered around him in a highly flattering but most embarrassing fashion just when he wished to compose and concentrate his faculties for his coming interview with Tommy. What was she doing there? What could her business have been? In plain truth she had come to avert a possible battle between Pip and Tommy, but this never occurred to Pip: he had not thought it possible that any one should take such a close interest in his movements. Anyhow this was no concern of his. Accordingly he said, "No" a second time.

Then came another question.

"Do you deny having been in the Study?"

"Yes."

"But you were seen coming from the passage leading to the Study door."

No answer.

"Do you admit that you were in that passage?"

"Yes." (Sensation.)

"Philip," said Mr. Pocklington, "that passage leads only to the Study. What other motive can have taken you there?"

No answer. It is difficult on the spur of the moment to frame a plausible excuse for having in cold blood arranged a sanguinary encounter outside your Principal's study door.

"Do you decline to answer?"

Again no reply from Pip. Another pause. Mr. Pocklington, now as excited as a terrier halfway down a rabbit-hole, with difficulty refrained from pronouncing sentence on the spot. However, he restrained himself so far as to remember to sum up.

"Appearances are against you, Philip," he began. "You were seen leaving the—the scene of the outrage in a suspicious manner shortly after that outrage was committed. You decline to state what business took you there. No one else visited the spot during the time under consideration—at least—by the way, did you see any one else while you—during that period?"

This chance shot hit Pip hard. That Isabel Dinting should have painted Julius Cæsar's nose red seemed almost beyond the bounds of human probability. Still she undoubtedly had been there, and with Mr. Pocklington in his present state the sudden revelation of such a fact would probably cause a perfect eruption. Pip hesitated.

"Was any one else there?" reiterated Mr. Pocklington.

Pip was essentially a truthful boy, and the idea of saying, "No" never occurred to him. Accordingly he said nothing, as before.

The eruption immediately took place.

"Philip," thundered Mr. Pocklington, "I have asked you two questions. You have answered neither of them. Do you decline to do so?"

A very long pause this time. Then—"Yes," said Pip briefly.

"In that case," replied Mr. Pocklington, metaphorically assuming the black cap, "I must pronounce you guilty. Still, I would rather you confessed than were convicted. I will give you one more minute."

Sixty palpitating seconds passed. Forty juvenile hearts bumped tumultuously, and Pip still stood up, a very straight, very silent, and not undignified little figure.

"Have you anything further to say?" inquired Mr. Pocklington at last, now almost convinced that he was the Lord Chief Justice himself.

Pip shook his head. He seldom wasted words.

"Then I pronounce you guilty. You have committed an offence against decency and good taste that I have never known paralleled in the history of this school. Your punishment"—the children held their breath—"must be a matter for consideration. Meanwhile—"

Mr. Pocklington paused, and frowned at Isabel Dinting, who was groping for something in her desk.

"Meanwhile," he continued, having suddenly decided to keep Pip in durance vile until a punishment could be devised in keeping with his crime, "you will be incarcerated—Well, Isabel?"

Isabel Dinting was standing up in her place, with her small countenance flushed and apprehensive, but bravely waving one hand in the air to attract attention. In the other she grasped a rather grubby and bulgy envelope.

"Please, may I speak to Pi—Philip?" she gasped.

Mr. Pocklington was too surprised to be pedantic.

"To Philip? Why, my child?"

"Because—well, because I've got somefing to give him."

"This is hardly the time for an exchange of gifts," remarked Mr. Pocklington severely.

"But may I?" persisted Isabel, with a boldness which surprised herself.

"I cannot imagine what your gift can be, but if it has any bearing on the present deplorable case, I should be only too thankful to permit—"

But long before this homily was completed Isabel had slipped out of her seat and was standing by Pip's side, whispering excitedly into his ear and endeavouring to thrust the grubby envelope into his hands.

"Take them," she panted. "There's thirty-five of them. Give him them all, now, and he'll let you off."

Poor little Isabel! Surely under all the broad heavens there was no crime that could not be atoned for by the surrender of thirty-five laboriously acquired Special Task-Tickets!

Pip smiled at her. He was a plain-looking little boy, but he possessed an extraordinarily attractive smile, and Isabel felt utterly, absolutely, and completely rewarded for her sacrifice.

Meanwhile Mr. Pocklington had come to the conclusion that all this was highly irregular.

"Bring me that envelope!" he commanded.

Pip handed up the envelope. Mr. Pocklington opened it, and out tumbled the thirty-five Special Task-Tickets.

"What is all this?" he inquired testily.

"Special Task-Tickets," replied Pip.

"To whom do they belong?"

"Isabel."

"No—they belong to Pip!" screamed that small maiden. "Won't you let him off if he gives them all to you, please? I've given them to him. I—I don't mind losin' them."

Isabel's voice quavered suddenly; and then, having conducted her case unflinchingly past the critical point, she dissolved, woman-like, into reactionary tears.

There was a long silence now, broken only by Isabel's sobs. Pip stood still stiffly at attention, facing the grinning effigy of Julius Cæsar. Every child in the room (except Pipette) was lost in admiration of Isabel's heroic devotion, for all knew how precious was her collection of tickets to her. Miss Mary smiled genially; Miss Amelia's eyes filled with sympathetic tears. Even Mr. Pocklington was touched. Hastily he flung together in his mind a few sentences appropriate to the occasion. "Unselfishness"—"devotion to a friend"—"a lesson for all"—the rounded phrases formed themselves upon his tongue. He was ready now.

"I cannot refrain—" he began.

It was true enough, but he got no further; for above the formal tones of his voice, above the stifled whispering of the school, and above the now unrestrained lamentations of Isabel Dinting, rose the voice of Master Thomas Oates, in a howl in which remorse, hysteria, and apprehension were about equally mingled.

"It was me!" he roared. "Booh—hoo!"

His sinful but sentimental soul, already goaded to excessive discomfort by the promptings of an officious conscience, had with difficulty endured the inquisition upon the innocent Pip, and after Isabel's romantic intervention he could contain himself no longer. Confession burst spontaneously from his lips.

"It was me!" he repeated, fortissimo, knuckling his eyes.

There was a final astonished gasp from the school.

"It was I, Thomas," corrected Mr. Pocklington, the ruling passion strong even at this crisis.

"No it wasn't!" roared Thomas, determined to purge his soul. "It was me! I was in the Study when Pip was outside, and I did it and got out when he was talking to Isabel, and—and I won't do it again. Aah—ooh!"

Pip became a hero, of course, but bore his honours with indifference.

Isabel expostulated with him.

"It was awful brave of you to say nothin' all the time," she remarked admiringly.

"There was nothing to say," replied Pip, with truth.

"But you said nothin' when you knew it was Tommy all the time," persisted Isabel, anxious to keep her idol on his pedestal.

"I didn't think it was Tommy," said Pip; "I thought it was you."

Isabel's round eyes grew positively owl-like.

"Me? Oh, Pip! How splendid of you!"

In his lifetime Pip inspired three women with love for him—two more than his proper allowance. Isabel was the first. The others will follow in due course.